SEAL This

Good for President Obama, authorising the sniper attack against the pirates. He should consider that withdrawal from Iraq, welcome though that is, is not enough if it is merely to transfer the forces to Afghanistan. The real threats are elsewhere. In fact, at least for now or anything like the foreseeable future, the real threat based in Somalia is precisely not the Islamists, but the Islamists’ enemies.

However, there is now talk of “dialogue”. About what? The pirates are plainly and simply that: robbers on the high seas. Their only demands are ransom demands. Their activities are no more or less than the outworking of human wickedness in general and human greed in particular.

Such are the real threats.